Check out the interview with Pharrell in today’s Guardian Weekend magazine – in which he messes about with a horse and wears some hats. He also uses it as an opportunity to half-heartedly defend the video for last year’s Blurred Lines again. Some more.
Speaking to Simon Hatterstone about the controversial video, he used that classic defence that all the women he knows thought it was ok – including his wife, Helen. ‘She [Helen] liked it’ he said. ‘A lot of women liked it. There are just certain women who are uncomfortable with certain things, and I respect that. I would never challenge that. What I did do is challenge myself to rise to the occasion and offer a full spectrum of my affinity for women, and not just the perverse side.’
He also said that his new album G I R L is a paean to women – although not an apology for B_lurred Lines_’ (frankly rapey) undertones. ‘I respected it [some female response to the video]. I'm not a woman, so I can never tell them how they feel. That's why this album is a gesture. I'm just trying to make it clear what I feel.
‘I would never apologise for saying, “He's not your maker, not your god.” In fact, a woman made him. A woman made me. Regardless of who you are, you came through those golden doors.’
Er – did he just refer to a woman’s vagina as ‘gold doors’? How…lyrical. That said, anyone else getting a little bored listening to defend that video?
In the interview, he also talks about the impossibility of trying to compete with Jay-Z. ‘Jay was never going to race with any of us. That was just my delusion […] his career runs laps round people. And he runs laps round people, lyrically. He's a philosopher and a poet.’
Follow Rebecca on Twitter @rebecca_hol
Pictures: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.